


Traditional Dinners

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Derek is a Good Boyfriend, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, POV Outsider, POV Sheriff Stilinski, Protective Stiles, Thanksgiving Dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 23:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12805098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Stiles’s eyes soften as Derek enters, his hands still damp from the dishes, potatoes smeared on his shirt, and little girl sparkly stickers stuck to his chest and cheek.





	Traditional Dinners

The first Thanksgiving that Stiles was dating Derek, they were in the middle of fighting off a succubus coven, and they barely noticed the holiday. Christmas was buried in an actual Yeti infestation and even though they realized the day, even slowed down to celebrate, they didn't leave Beacon Hills. So they're together over a year before Derek is exposed to a Stilinski family holiday.

And because Stiles is _Stiles_ , brilliant and unobservant and flighty and perfect, John knows--he hasn’t figured it out.

He knows because Stiles is all hummingbird fast in the kitchen, flitting from one pie to the next casserole, making sure everything is perfect and ready for the two hour drive, smiling so wide he _can’t_ have put it together.

Because--they live alone. It’s the two of them, against the world it seems like, with Mel and Scott, and lately Derek, but it’s small and insular and the good people of Beacon Hills forget that there’s a sprawling, nosey, _adoring_ family a few hours to the south that he and Claudia left when they moved to Beacon Hills a few months after Stiles was born.

He hides his smile and watches Derek steering Stiles, watches as he carries the five-- _seriously, kid, Babica cooks--_ dishes to the truck because Derek put his foot down about driving two hours in the cruiser _and_ the Jeep, so here they are, and he has it on good authority Stiles pouted for two days before Derek managed to coax him out of his sulk and John doesn’t want to know _how_ he did that, because he likes Hale and really doesn’t want to have to shoot him.

He sees it washing over Stiles while he chatters about his cousins, about his aunt and his Babica, his voice slowing and something like slow horror cascading down his expression and John hides his laugh--badly, because Stiles flails accusingly in his direction--in a cough.

“This is gonna be so bad,” Stiles moans, and Derek, poor sweet kid, just pats his knee in quiet reassurance.

~*~

It’s not as bad as Stiles thinks.

It’s _worse._

Because it’s been over a year since they saw him, the horde of cousins and aunts, uncles and assorted friends who have become family, and they’ve all _heard_ about Derek because Stiles calls and he talks incessantly and half the time it’s about Derek even if he does manage to pull the supernatural out of it. So they’ve heard of him, he of the eyebrows and scowls, of the bad attitude and strangely nerdy pop references and his penchant for getting Stiles into--and out of, thank god--trouble.

So maybe, maybe they don’t have a good opinion of the guy, what with missing the holidays and the two years of loud pining Stiles did, and the whole resting bitch face. Even now that Stiles swoons over him, there's a distrustful dislike because no one is good enough for their Stiles.

Still. It’s almost painful, watching them. Stiles being drawn into conversation by his aunts, his food cooed over while Derek carries things.

The mass of cousins tugging him into conversation in Polish, side eyeing Derek while Stiles laughs and listens and fills them in on their lives.

The uncles, one by one going up to him, talking low and serious while Derek leans against the door frame, his gaze never straying far from Stiles, except to check John’s position in the room--an Alpha, through and through--nodding along to whatever they said before they wandered away, chest puffed and preening.

He was ignored and snubbed and insulted, and that was before the meal was served and John’s aunt, an old woman who thought of Stiles as her own grandchild, pushed Derek toward the table with the children under the age of ten.

Stiles yelped a protest at that, but Rachel was pulling him toward the long table for the rest of the family and Derek was smiling, waving him away.

“Go. Hang out with your family. I’m fine,” Derek promised, kissing him briefly before settling among the children.

When John peeked in at them halfway through dinner, he smiled to see Derek listening solemn and serious to a six year old Elle as she talked about the turkey she made in kindergarten.

Alex was scowling at his sister and tugging on Derek’s sleeve for attention, and little Gemin had crawled in Derek’s lap, smearing sweet potatoes into his green sweater before passing out.

He snapped a picture and caught the curious tilt of Derek’s eyebrows at him before he returned to the main family, sending Stiles the picture and grinning at the soft smile his son gave when he looked at it.

~*~

“You are brave, to come here.”

John pauses in the doorway, listening. Derek is washing dishes, the rest of the family scattered to naps and a football game and shopping.

The werewolf has been cleaning up for what seems like hours, quietly, not bothering to complain when more pie plates appear, not chasing Stiles when he is dragged away from the kitchen, after a few minutes of helping Derek.

“You matter to him. To both of them. Of course I came.”

Babica is quiet for a long moment, and then, “And your family? Are they not important?”

 _Heavy question, mom,_ John thinks and almost steps into the room.

“We spend the anniversary of Claudia’s death with her, and the anniversary of my family’s death with them, but the holidays belong to the living and if this is where Stiles’ family is, this is where I’ll be, for as long as he wants me.”

John can’t breath for a moment, can’t breath past the casual reference to his wife or Derek’s family, or the way Derek is just _there_ , so invested in Stiles it still stuns him.

“They insulted and threatened you.”

“They did,” Derek agrees, and he sounds almost fond. “But my last girlfriend--she tried to kill me three times and her father tried four. Your family--they come from a good place. They worry about him.”

“He is very special to us,” Babica agrees and Derek huffs a laugh.

“How do I fault any who would keep him safe?”

“You are very strange, wolf,” she says and Derek is quiet and still for a long moment before she tuts, a quiet approval, “But you are good for him. You. You will come back for Christmas, yes. And they will be better.”

John doesn’t stay to listen to the rest. He knows damn well Derek will be wherever Stiles is for Christmas, and knows just as surely that his mother will browbeat the family into treating Derek like royalty, the next time he’s here.

He finds Stiles, looking grumpy and anxious, headed for the kitchen and grins at his son.

“Babica found him.”

“Oh, _god.”_

He laughs and slings in arm around Stiles’ shoulders. “She likes him.”

That earns him a flail. “Oh my _god.”_

John pushes his son into the couch, leaving enough space for Derek, and says, “Better keep him. I think if you get a divorce, Babica will fight me for him.”  

Stiles’s eyes soften as Derek enters, his hands still damp from the dishes, potatoes smeared on his shirt, and little girl sparkly stickers stuck to his chest and cheek.

“Yeah, well. He’s worth fighting for,” Stiles says, reaching for Derek’s hand, and that’s when he sees his son’s busted knuckles and the bruise, faint but there, on his cheek.

“ _Dammit, Stiles,”_ a cousin shouts from the back of the house and Derek looks at him, confused when Stiles grins wide and innocent.

“Why do I smell blood?”

Stiles shrugs and kisses him and John sighs as he watches the football game and the house fills up with noise.

**Author's Note:**

> Vague references to Stiles punching someone in defense of Derek. 
> 
> Mostly this is just fluff because I wanted Derek at a big family Thanksgiving dinner.


End file.
